Team Vitality’s first appearance since their triumphant victory at the BLAST Paris CS:GO Major last month did not go according to plan. The reigning champions fell in shocking fashion today against a Brazilian legend of the game.
The first map of the BLAST Spring Final was a stunner. FalleN and Imperial Esports wiped out Vitality on Overpass 16-3 on the shoulders of a heroic performance from chelo, who picked up 25 kills while only surrendering seven deaths. Imperial jumped out to another big lead on Vertigo, controlling the map with a 14-7 lead on their CT side. Vitality did show signs of life with a comeback but ultimately fell in the final round of regulation to lose 16-14.
Related: How does Vitality’s perfect CS:GO Major run compare to NAVI’s?
This result brings a number of impressive streaks to an end. Prior to Overpass, Vitality’s superstar ZywOo had gone 32 maps in a row without notching an HLTV player rating below 1.0 but finished Overpass with a dismal 0.78. Vitality’s win streak of 14 straight maps also came to an end, losing a map for the first time since Inferno against Cloud9 during IEM Rio, before the Major even started. It’s also Vitality’s first best-of-three and 0-2 loss since losing to 9INE at the RMR.
Interestingly, Vitality are the second straight team to win a Major but then lose their first best-of-three after, following Outsiders’ loss to Liquid at the BLAST World Final immediately after winning the Rio Major. Prior to these two, the last time a Major winner lost their next best-of-three was coincidentally when FalleN and SK Gaming lost a showmatch to NAVI way back in 2016 after ESL Cologne.
Given the format, though, Vitality can still make it into the BLAST Spring Final playoffs with a win against either G2 or Cloud9.
